27 February 2014

I found this idea
for white chocolate with salty liquorice and lemon on Fazer's recipe pages, and wanted to try it as a quick remedy for chocolate cravings.
Please note that the original recipe is in Finnish. They used white
lemon chocolate, but I decided to season regular white chocolate with
lemon zest.

300g white chocolate (for baking)

½ lemon's zest

2tbsp Tyrkisk Peber crush (substitute
with another liquorice crush)

Heat the chocolate in a water bath
until liquid.

Grate the lemon zest and add it to the
chocolate and whisk.

Pour the chocolate on a baking
parchment and sprinkle the Tyrkisk Peber crush on the top.

25 February 2014

A while ago I
posted a photo of this dish to Guardian Witness' recipe swap on the
subject “Cheap”, because that's what this dish is. However it
doesn't mean that it's bad in any way. It's quite nice to get a
lovely meal for a low price, isn't it?

So this is just a
green lentil soup with some additional potatoes, and of course other
soup basics. I always tend to have these ingredients in my kitchen.

1 large onion

3 garlic cloves

1tbsp olive oil

250g potatoes

1tbsp vegetable
stock powder + 1l water

1,5 cups green
dried lentils

1tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

1tsp fresh thyme
leaves

Chop the onion and
garlic finely, and cut the peeled potatoes (no need to peel, if you
use new potatoes) into cubes.

Heat the olive oil
in a saucepan and lightly fry the onion and garlic. Then add the
potatoes and fry and stir for a couple of minutes more.

Prepare a
vegetable stock of vegetable stock powder and water and add about the
half of it into the pan. The other half will be gradually added when
the soup is simmering. You might not need the whole litre depending
on the desired thickness of the soup.

Rinse the green
dried lentils and also add them to the pan. Let the soup simmer under
a lid. Stir occasionally and add little more stock. Make sure that
the lentils are covered with stock at all times.

When the lentils
and potatoes are cooked soft, season the soup with salt, black pepper
and thyme.

23 February 2014

Yesterday I had
the pleasure to visit the most exciting beer festival I have ever
been to: Craft Beer Rising in The Old Truman Brewery. The brewery is conveniently located in East London on Brick Lane in a
vibrant arts quarter. There is a vintage clothes market in the
building, but this weekend in the upstairs halls 75 breweries
presented their craft beers, over 400 sorts. The festival had a
cosmopolitan atmosphere about it in an interesting setting, quite
different to most beer festivals. It wasn't too crowded, and you were
able to move around easily. Only minus point could be the lack of
vegetarian food, luckily I wasn't hungry then.

So for a few hours
I strolled through the stalls and had half pints here and there. Here
are some of my new acquaintances and links to their homepages. A
friend of mine, who accompanied me there, helped me with these
tasting notes.

They passed their
Cross Pacific Pale Ale (4.2%) through a canister of fresh,
green hops on the way from the pump to the glass. This resulted in a
mix of really forward hop aromas in a refreshing pale beer. It was a
perfect start for the festival.

The Hibernation
White IPA (5.6%) was a wheat beer brewed with a normal yeast, and
lots of hops as you'd expect in an IPA, giving the rich mouth feel
and cloudy character of a wheat beer without the fruity and spicy
tastes; instead lots of bitterness and citrus character in the style
of modern, North American IPA. Quite unique.

This was the last
beer I tried, the dancing barman lured me in with his vibrant sales
technique; the Brigid Fire (6.3%) was brewed using smoked rye,
which added a sour, rich and lightly smoky flavour.

All these beers
were very delightful, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time or
stamina to taste all the ones I wanted, the offer was so huge. I
personally crowned the Bear Hug Brewing Company's Hibernation White IPA to my
festival favourite.

Did you visit?
What are your impressions? I'm sure I'll go next year as well!

21 February 2014

I have already
shared one of my Spätzle recipes here, and here comes
another one. To the first recipe I added some bell peppers, but today I'm just
making my basic shallot Spätzle bake. Maybe I'll have to explain
again what Spätzle is to those who aren't familiar with it. Spätzle
is a German dish, Swabian egg noodles or small dumplings, mostly
eaten as a side. I however feel that Spätzle can make wonderful
stand-alone dishes and therefore use it as the main star of these
recipes. It's great weekend food as well.

Spätzle dough:

400g wheat flour

4 eggs

1tsp salt

250ml water

Bake ingredients:

4 shallots

4 garlic cloves

1tbsp olive oil

150g emmental
cheese

First caramelise
the shallots in olive oil, and also fry the garlic.

Make the Spätzle
dough by whisking the dough ingredients into an even batter. It
should be fairly moist, yet elastic. Bring a large saucepan of water
to the boil and press the Spätzle dough through the largest setting
of a potato ricer straight into the heavily boiling water. Do this in
small batches, but make sure that the water is always boiling,
otherwise it could lead into dissolving of the dough structure into
the water. After a couple of minutes the Spätzle start floating on
the surface, and then they can be taken out.

Add the cooked
Spätzle to the shallot and garlic pan and mix. Put the mixture into
an oven dish, you can make one large dish or several smaller ones.
Grate the cheese and place it on the top of the bakes.

Bake at 200C for
about 20 minutes until the cheese topping is golden brown.

20 February 2014

A tomato bruchetta
is a nice classic, which makes a brilliant breakfast or lunch bread
with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. Today I made my version, it's
very fresh, simple and easy.

Ingredients

200g selected
tomatoes (e.g. colourful small cherry tomatoes)

150g mozzarella
balls

4 bread slices

Basil dressing

50ml olive oil

40g basil leaves

25g pine nuts

3 garlic cloves

First make the
basil dressing by just puréeing all the ingredients. This dressing
is very much like pesto, just without the cheese. Have a look at the
frozen pesto cubes idea, since you may have more left than you can
use.

Spread the basil
dressing on the bread slices and place a few mozzarella balls on each
one.

Bake the breads in
the oven at 180C for about 10 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Slice the
tomatoes, place them on the breads, put some extra basil dressing on
them and serve.

18 February 2014

Couple of weeks
ago I had the pleasure to visit the BrewDog Shepherds Bush, a pub by
the Scottish craft beer brewery BrewDog.

They offer a very
wide selection of craft beer in a great atmosphere with a cool interior. It's quite
difficult to decide what to choose from all of those beers, strong,
light, dark, pale, they have everything...

I tasted two
wonderful beer sorts. Firstly I had the "Bohemian Pilsner", Fake Lager 4.7%, which is a rather
German style Pilsner, the kind I like.

My second choice
was the Dead Pony Club 3.8%, a Californian Pale Ale described as
“hoppy as hell”, and that it certainly delivered. I think I might
have to buy that bottled as well.

I was happy
sitting in the pub enjoying my beers while it was a pouring rain
outside. Go and visit them and see what all the fuss is about!

When I make pesto,
I tend to make a fairly large batch that I sometimes don't manage to
eat in time. That's when this idea of frozen pesto cubes comes in
handy: freeze the excess pesto and take it out to melt, or add to
pasta sauces or pizzas whenever needed.

I prefer to make
the cheeseless pesto version for freezing, just a clean basil
dressing with basic ingredients. The following amounts are enough to
fill a normal ice cube tray.

Ingredients

80g basil leaves

50g pine nuts

6 garlic cloves

1dl olive oil

Method

Puree all the
ingredients together and pour into the slots of an ice cube tray.

17 February 2014

I missed to post
this on the weekend when it would've been more suitable, but here it
comes anyway. Veggie pizzas are so nice, especially for a lazy
Saturday film night, or even for a kids' party. This time I made
veggie mini pizzas with different toppings. I have listed below the
ingredients I used, but you can get creative and put your own
favourite toppings on.

Ingredients for about 12 mini pizzas

Pizza dough:

400g wheat flour

100g semolina +
some for dusting

2tbsp dry yeast

1tsp salt

350ml warm water

2tbsp olive oil

Topping:

250g grated
mozzarella

1 orange pepper

1 onion

180g tomatoes

100g spinach

85g green olives

1 garlic clove

Basil leaves

Make the dough
first. Mix the dry ingredients together, and then add the lukewarm
water and olive oil. Knead a while into an even dough and let it rise
under a tea towel for about one hour.

In the meanwhile
you can prepare the toppings. Chop the veg into suitable slices and
grate the mozzarella. I didn't make a tomato sauce this time, but
just used tomato slices instead.

Once the dough has
risen, roll chunks of it out into small and thin circles. Roll them
out on semolina so that the crust will get a nice crispy semolina
finish.

Place the toppings
on the crusts and bake the pizzas at 220C for about 10 minutes until
fully baked. Serve warm and enjoy!

14 February 2014

It's still winter
since I last time checked, and I feel like hibernating. But since I'm
wide awake, I might as well have a good time and eat nice food.

Today I made a
warm salad with hearty ingredients halloumi, pearled spelt and kale.
This is how it's made.

250 g halloumi
cheese

1 tbsp vegetable
oil (for halloumi frying)

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

1 orange romano
pepper

1 cup pearled
spelt

200 g curly kale

2 tsp vegetable
stock powder + 500 ml water

½ tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

Dice the halloumi
and fry the dices in vegetable oil until golden brown. Set to side.

Chop the shallots,
garlic and romano pepper. Heat olive oil in a pan and sweat the
shallots and garlic in the pan for a few minutes. Then add the
pepper, the vegetable stock powder and water to the pan and also the
pearled spelt. Cook for about 15 minutes until the spelt is tender.
Season with salt and pepper.

Remove any large
stalks of the kale and boil it in water for about 5 minutes and
drain.

Add the kale and
halloumi to the spelt pan. Serve warm and keep yourself warm!

12 February 2014

I have mentioned
before that crown prince squash is fast becoming my favourite squash.
Therefore I just have to share this pie recipe with you, that mainly
consists of a proud crown prince.

In British pubs I
often see pies served with this high puff pastry lid, and that has
made me curious enough to try to make my own recipe for a vegetarian
pie of this sort. It's not difficult, just read my instructions
below.

1 medium crown
prince squash

3 tbsp olive oil
(for roasting and frying)

4 shallots

4 garlic cloves

3 tbsp fresh sage
leaves

150 g Red
Leicester cheese

1 dl dry cider

1 tsp vegetable
stock powder

½ tsp ground
black pepper

1 tsp salt

320 g puff pastry

Chop the shallots
and garlic and peel and dice the crown prince squash. Place the
squash dices in an oven dish and brush them with some olive oil.
Roast the squash at 180C for about 20 minutes.

Heat some olive
oil in a pan and sweat the shallots and garlic for about 5 minutes.
Then add the roasted squash and the cider (I used once again Wyld
Wood organic cider).

Season with sage,
vegetable stock powder, pepper and salt and let cook for a while so
that the flavours can blend. Stir the grated cheese into the mixture.

Put the squash
mixture into small ramekins and place round pieces (slightly larger
than the ramekin's diameter) of thinly rolled puff pastry on the top
and press it firmly along the edges.

Bake the pies at
180C for about 30 minutes until the puff pastry has risen and is
golden brown.

10 February 2014

I just realised
that I haven't posted any sandwich ideas here, can it be true? I can
only remember paninis, rolls, bagels, bruchettas... anyway, today I
am indeed posting a sandwich recipe, and what could be better for a
start of a new week.

I char-grilled
some vegetables and halloumi slices and stacked them on bread –
easy + I love the smoky flavour! These vegetable amounts should be
enough to make four generous sandwiches.

1 aubergine

1 zucchini

1 halloumi

100g baby salad
leaves

Bread slices

Vegetable oil for
grilling

Slice the
vegetables and halloumi into thin slices.

Heat vegetable oil
in a griddle pan and char-grill the vegetables on both sides until
they have distinctive grilling marks. Due to my pan's size I had to
do several batches of grilling, so I placed the ones that were
already done in a dish into the oven to stay warm.

When the grilling
is done, half a large bread slice (or use two bread slices on top of
each other) and stack the salad and vegetables on one slice and then
place a lid on the sandwich. I decided not to grill the bread on this
occasion, but feel free to do so.

9 February 2014

There is a
tradition in this country for an opulent Sunday meal, called the
Sunday roast. Whether it's enjoyed at home with relatives, in pubs or
restaurants, it's an important tradition for the British. Even though
the concept has strong connotations with a meaty meal, vegetarians
can make a fabulous roast dinner as well and that's what I'm trying
to present to you here today.

Nut roast

A vegetarian roast
dinner needs a centrepiece substituting the meat products, and I
decided to make a nut roast again. This one differs slightly from my
Christmas nut roast recipe as this time I used pearled spelt as one
component.

1dl pearled spelt

1tsp vegetable
stock powder

240g peeled and
cooked chestnuts

1-2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

1 carrot

25g dried porcini
mushrooms

2tbsp olive oil

100g Red Leicester
cheese

2tbsp breadcrumbs

Cook the spelt in
water with added vegetable stock powder until tender. This takes
about 15 minutes. In the meanwhile soak the crushed porcini mushrooms
for about 10 minutes.

Chop the shallots,
garlic and carrot finely and fry them lightly in olive oil. I grated
the carrot to have it extra fine. Drain the porcini, but save the
soaking water, and add the mushrooms to the pan.

When the spelt has
cooked add it to the pan as well and some of the mushroom soaking
water as well.

Once you are happy
that all the components have cooked nicely, add the chestnuts. Press
them little between your fingers and add to the mix. Then also add
the grated cheese and the breadcrumbs and divide the mixture into
small greased ramekins.

Bake them for
about 40 minutes at 180C.

Onion gravy

Other important
components to a roast dinner are steamed or roasted vegetables and
potatoes, and I moistened them with my onion gravy, recipe is here.
Reserve enough time for making the gravy as the shallots need to
caramelise a while. You can always reheat the gravy, if you make it
earlier.

Yorkshire puddings

For the first time
I'm making Yorkshire puddings, and used this basic recipe for them.
Finnish oven pancakes are very similar to the Yorkshire puddings, but
normally bigger and they would only be served as a dessert.

140g flour

4 eggs

200ml milk

Vegetable oil for
greasing

Whisk the
ingredients together and bake in a greased muffin tin at 200C for
about 25 minutes. They will nicely puff up, so only fill the holes of
the tin half full.

On the side I
served my cranberry jelly.
I would recommend making this on the previous day as it needs several
hours for setting. You'll find the full recipe through the link.

Vegetables

Choose any of your
favourite vegetables to be served. These are my chosen ones for this
meal.

230g purple
sprouting broccoli spears

1 cup frozen peas

150g baby topped
carrots

1 parsnip

4 garlic cloves

500g small
potatoes

2tbsp vegetable
oil

½tsp salt

1tsp thyme

I steamed the
broccoli spears and heated the frozen peas in a pan, but the other
vegetables were roasted.

Peel and chop the
parsnip into thin sticks. If you are using baby carrots, they can be
left as they are, otherwise chop them in the same fashion as the
parsnips. Peel and crush the garlic. The potatoes just need a quick
wash, leave the peels on.

Place the
vegetables in a roasting tin and brush them with vegetable oil.
Sprinkle salt and thyme on them and roast in the oven for about 40
minutes until all the vegetables are nicely done.

Timing is key when
putting a Sunday roast together. You would want all the components to
be ready at the same time, so think carefully about the timings when
you have to cook which part. Some of them can be prepared on the
previous day. Remember that you can get really creative with this and
choose only your favourite vegetables, and as the main piece either a
nut roast, vegetarian Schnitzel, veggie sausages or anything nice you
can think of.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
Follow theveghog on Instagram and @TheVegHog on Twitter!